The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-05-12

III YOU attempt 10 plunge through heuSe OF
burrs to get one blackberry, you will get
more burrs than blackberries. You cannot
afford to read bad book, however good You
are. You say; "Ihe influence is nsignitl-
can't | tell you that the scratch of pin
has sometimes produced the lock-jaw, Alas II
through curiosity, as many do, you pry into an
evil book, your curiosity is as dangerous as
that of the man who would take torch into
a gunpowder mill merely to see whether II
would blow up or not. In menagerie 10
New York, man put his arm through tne
bars of black leopard's cage, The ahinlals
hide looked SO sleek and bright, and beautiful
He lust stroked it once The monster seized
him, and he drew forth hand torn, ana
mangled, and bleeding, o, touch not eyil,eVen
with the faintest stroke. Though u may
be glossy and beautiful, touch it not, lest you
null forth your soul torn and bleeding under
the clutch of the black leopard. But, you
say, show can find out whether a book IS
good or bad without reading it, There Is
always something suspicious about pau
book. never knew an xception-something
suspicious in the index or style OF illustratioh'
This venomous reptile almost always carriesa
warning rattle III
those books which corrupt the imaSination
and infame the passions, do not refer now
to that kind of a book which the villain has
under his coat waiting for the schooi 10 See
out, and then, looking both ways TO see .ilat
here is no policeman around the block, oifers
The book to your son on his way home 90
not speak of that kind of literature, puG thae
which evades the law and comes out IN poiishea
style, and with acute plot sounds the tocsln that
rouses up all the baser passions OF the soul.
To-day under the nostrils of this land, there
is fetid, reeking, unwashed literature,
enough to poison all the fountains OF puplic
virtue, and smite your sons and daughters as
with the wing of a DESTROYING angel, ana u Is
time that the ministers of the Gospel blew
the trumpet and rallied the forces OF right
eousness, all armed to the teeth, In TINS greao
battle against depraved literature.
Again: abstain from those books when are
apologetic of crime. 1t is sad thing tha0
some of the best and most beautiful DOCK
bindery, and some of the finest rhetoric, nave
been brought to make sin attractive: vice Is
a horrible thing any how. It's born IN sllaiiie,
and it dies bowling in the darkness. In TINS
world it is scourged with whip OF scorpions,
but afterwards the thunders of Gods wrath
pursue it across q boundlesS desert, beatlnS IL
with ruin and woe. When you come TO PAM
carnality do not paint it as looking from pc
hind embroidered curtains, or through lattice
of royal seraglio, but as writing IN the
agonies of city hospital.
Cursed be the books that try to make In,
purity decent, and crime attractive, ana
hypocrisy nobel Cursed be the books that
swarm with libertines and desperadoes, VINO
make the brain of the young people whlrl
with villainy! Ye authors who write them,
We publishers who print them, ye bookselleis
who distribute them, shall be cut to pieces, II
not by an aroused community, then at iasG
by the hail of Divine vengeance, which shall
sweep to the lowest pit of perdition all We
murderers of souls. | tell you, though you
may escape in this world you will be
ground at last under the hoof of eternal
caamities, and you will be chained to the
rock, and you will have the vultures of de-
spair clawing at your soul, and those whom
you have destroyed will come around to tor
ment you and to pour hotter Goals OF fury
upon your head, and rejoice eternally in the
outcry of your pain and the howl OF your
damnaton. God shall wound the hairy scalp
of him that goeth on in his trespasses."
The clock strikes midnight. A fair form
bends over romance The eyes flash fire.
The breath is quick and irregular. Occasion
ally the color dashes into the cheek, and then
dies out The hands tremble as though
guardian spirit were trying to shake the
deadly book out of the grasp. Hot tears fall.
She laughs with shrill voice that drops dead
at its own sound. The sweat on her brow is
the spray dashed up from the river of death.
The clock strikes -four and the rosy dawn
soon after begins to look through the lattice
upon the pale form that looks like detained
spectre of the night. Soon, in madhouse,
she will mistake her ringlets for curling SER
penis, and thrust her white hand through the
bars of the prison and snite her head, rub
bling it back as though to push the scalp from
the skull, shriekng: MY brain. my brain!"
Oh, stand off from that Why will you go
sounding your way amid the reefs and warn
ing buoys, when there is such vast ocean in
which you may voyage, all sail set!
There is one other thing l shall say this
morning before | leave you whether you
want to hear it or not. That is, that con-
slider the lascivious pictorial literature of the
day as most tremendous for ruin. There is no
one who can like good pictures better than
do. The quickest and most condensed way
of impressing the public mind is by picture.
What the painter does by his brush for a few
favorites the engraver does by his knife
for the million. What the author accomp-
fishes by fifty pages, the artist does by a
flash The best part of painting that costs
ten thousand dollars you may buy for ten
cents. Fine paintings belong to the aristo-
cracy of art. Engravings belong to the
democracy of art. You do well to gather
good pictures in your homes Spread them
before your children, after the tea-hour is
past, and the evening circle is gathered.
Throw them on the invalid's couch. Strew
them through the rail-train to cheer the trav-
eler on his journey. Tack them on the wall
of the nursery. Gather them in albums and
portfolios God speed the good pictures on
their way with ministries of knowledge and
mercy!
But what shall I say of the prostitution Of
this art to purposes of iniquity These death
warrants of the soul are at every street cor
ner They s1nite the vision of the young man
with pollution. Many young man buying a
copy has bought his eternal discontinue.
There may be enough poison in one bad
picture to poison one soul, and that
hon
and the fifty hundreds, and the hundreds
thousands. until nothing but the measuring
fine of eternity can tell the height. ana
depth, and ghastliness and horror OF the
great undoing. The work of death that the
wicked author does in whole book the bad
engraver NAV do on half side of pictorial
| Under the guise of pure mirth, the young
man buys one of these sheets. he unrolls IL
before his comrades amid roars OF laugh
ter, but long after the paper is gone the
result may perhaps be seen in the blasted
imagination of those who saw it. The queen
of death holds banquet every night, and
these periodicals are the printed invitation tc
her guests Alas that the fair brow OF
American art should be blotched with this
plague-spot, and that philanthropists, bother
ing themselves about smaller evils, should lltt
up no united and vehement voice against this
great calamity.
for your SOUL Pick not up this nest of coilet
adders for your pocket! Patronize no new
stand that keeps them! Have your room brigh
with good engravings; but for these uncleaI
pictorials have not one wall, not one bureau
not one pocket. A man is no better than thu
pictures he loves to look at. If your eye
are not pure, your heart cannot be. At I
news stand one can guess the characte
of the man by the kind of pictorial he pur
chases. When the devil fails to get man t.
read bad book, he sometimes succeeds in get
ting him to look at bad picture. Whel
Satan goes a-fishing he does not care whether
it is a long line or short line, if he onl,
draws his victim in. Beware of lasciviou
pictorials young man; in the name of AL
might God | charge you
If | have this morning successfully lait
down any principles by which you may judg
in regard to books and newspapers then
have done something which l .hall not b.
ashamed of on the day which shall try ever,
mans work, of what sort it is.
Cherish good books and newspapers. Be
ware of the bad ones One column may saw,
your soul; QUE paragraph may ruin it
Benjamin Franklin said that the reading O